


and this is why I sojourn here

by redledgers



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Gaelic mythology, Revenge, Sidhe, The Moors, fey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 15:32:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10619847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redledgers/pseuds/redledgers
Summary: she is the leanán sídhe and he has come for what magic she offers





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats, 1819.

Shrouded in the shadows cast by stones on the moors is a figure, waiting. He pulls his jacket a little closer against the winds, flexes his fingers against his thigh, and watches over the barrows below. It’s not long until he sees her in the distance, amongst the small hills of graves, the fabric of her dress swirling in the eddies. The third day, he’s marked it carefully, and it is as good a time as any to tempt fate. And so he rises, fixes his wrinkled jacket and pants, and wanders down to the graves with perfect nonchalance.

She sees him coming and he was expecting it to be so, although he continues his casual walk until she is within reasonable speaking distance. For now, he will wait for her to speak. Surely it’s not an uncommon thing for men to seek her out as a muse, men who desire the love of the faeries and the restlessness of her attentions. A peculiar dark unkindness comes with her, but it is the reason for her continued existence and he is an unkind man.

“A fine day to be walking amongst the dead,” she says with more behind her words than he expected, as if she knows his past. And now he sees why she continues. Her dark hair is pulled away from her face, a braid draped over her shoulder, but the wind has claimed wisps of it in a rather delicious disheveled fashion. The only thing that belied her faerie connection was the tip of her ears: delicate tapering points. When he feels the tug of otherworldly power, he steels himself.

“Indeed. They say the wind is the spirits of those buried beneath.” And oh, her laugh could conquer cities if she wanted. It had inspired the lyrics of half a dozen ballads, carefully crafted to suit her needs. True, he was no artist or poet, but perhaps she would see his capable hands and ask.

“Take a stroll with me?” Her wide green eyes level with his, wander down his body and back up to his face, and he offers his hand willingly, allowing her to draw him in. She takes it, skin warm and burning, but pleasantly so.

He feels too much at ease in this place, has spent too long walking dead among the living in the city. She walks beside him as if they are dancing, graceful and careful with each step, and he wonders why a muse would bother with him. But he is here to finish what has been started, and he is not against using people the way he was used.

Their walk is silent until she asks, “What is it that you create?” Her voice drips with curiosity and longing.

Death, weapons, destruction. Instead of saying these, he stops walking and faces her. “What is it that you see?” There is a game of information he is willing to play, but only if he accomplishes his goal, only if she can leech off the life that he has to offer back home.

“You need a bit of brightness in your life, darling.” She holds his hand in both of hers, fingers tracing over the pads of his fingertips, seeking his callouses and faint burn scars. “And you create danger.”

There is a line with sidhe that people do not cross, because if they do, they will never return. But if one knew what they were getting into, they could twist the line, shift it, and work it to their advantage. And if there was something else he was good at, it was negotiating. “Oh really?”

She looks up at him now and he knows now why it’s hard to say no to her. “And what would you say to letting some light in?” It’s an odd question to ask where they’re standing; the irony is too much.

He finds himself drawn closer, feeling the heat that radiates from her. He feels cornered, like she’s looking into his soul, holding him against the wall and asking him for more. He wants to give it to her, to give her his life and create just for her. But a gust of wind catches the edge of his coat and his mind clears for just a second, long enough for him to say, “Not from you.”

Her face falls, lips pouting, and she steps away from him smoothly. “Fair enough, darling. Then what would you like?” Rejection is not an easy thing for her, he knows, because he knows the stories. Now she looks small, and just a little scared.

“Revenge.” A family, love, anything she could give him would not be worth the sight of revenge. “Perhaps something quick or perhaps drawn out if you wish, but you will gain what you desire from it.”

She considers it for a moment, and then inclines her head and his eyes flit over the delicate curve of her neck; he gets distracted by the pair of raven feathers tucked behind one ear. “As it be, I am at your service.”

He doesn’t know how to deal with this easy acceptance; the stories are vague about rejection, not detailed about the service she enters to those who refuse. Even so, he’s still drawn to her, and he offers his hand again. “Would you come with me then?” She steps toward him and he’s never felt so alive in the midst of graves with her hand in his. He leans forward and presses his lips to hers gently. When he straightens, the tips of her pointed ears are pink. “Is there something I might call you other than Leanan?”

At the sound of the name poets use, she wrinkles her nose. “Vex’ahlia,” she says simply after a moment. “And if it is revenge you seek, I will stand with you.” There is a flicker of darkness in her eyes, a sharp smile. She truly is a wicked woman in all her desires and it is no wonder men go mad.

There might be a sliver of love in the way he kisses the back of her hand and bows, but then he is not immune to her charms completely. “Percival,” he replies, his name an offering of something more. “I know monsters with life for you should you desire, and when you’ve finished, you are free to go.” He was asked to capture, to kill, because too many now have fallen to her whims, to the love she claimed to offer. But now, as the wind plays at their hair as they leave the barrows and cross into the moors, he is enraptured with this faerie and the small bit of light she’s already brought with her.


End file.
